[americandream]

Sounds nice. Where can I sign up?

In your brain...by informing yourself?

[VMarcHart]

Would the Moderator please send a pm to me? Thanks!

[allenwrench]

No reason to tackle em...they will just starve to death.

I especially like this quote:

"A sign of the fragility of the Cult of Doomerism is the fact that peakoil.com, the Internet's home of Doomers, now routinely sees the shouting down and banning anyone who voices a contrary opinion. The PO.com forum has become a meeting place for the disaffected, the maudlin, the jaundiced of view and the panicky by nature. Avoid at all costs, or lurk for a laugh."

[TWilliam]

A sign of the fragility of the Cult of Doomerism is the fact that peakoil.com, the Internet's home of Doomers, now routinely sees the shouting down and banning anyone who voices a contrary opinion. The PO.com forum has become a meeting place for the disaffected, the maudlin, the jaundiced of view and the panicky by nature.

In a word... the smart ones...

[Ferretlover]

From article link:

A sign of the fragility of the Cult of Doomerism is the fact that peakoil.com, the Internet's home of Doomers, now routinely sees the shouting down and banning anyone who voices a contrary opinion. The PO.com forum has become a meeting place for the disaffected, the maudlin, the jaundiced of view and the panicky by nature.

Love it! Poor Dr. Doom. He's so irritated that we wouldn't swallow whole his point of view and scared to death of anything that rattles his carefully constructed world.

[VMarcHart]

A sign of the fragility of the Cult of Doomerism is the fact that peakoil.com, the Internet's home of Doomers, now routinely sees the shouting down and banning anyone who voices a contrary opinion. The PO.com forum has become a meeting place for the disaffected, the maudlin, the jaundiced of view and the panicky by nature.

In a word... the smart ones...

And here we go ... people are calling themselves smart. If PO-related overshoot doesn't kill us, sure arrogance and narcissism will. It's ludicrous we spend so much time talking about overshoot, cargoism, powerdown, depletion, etc, when we cannot tame our own attitude. Let us look no further as to why we are in such a mess.

[outcast]

You guys do realize that people have been deriding "cargoism" and talking about overshoot for 200 years now, right? People have been predicting "the great die off" for decades and it still hasn't come to pass.

You won't even get one word of debate from me.
You are in the camp with those who think the moonlanding was a staged studio event.

I'm not seeing the connection. The moon landing was NOT faked.

the cornucopian (republican, christian, techtopian, etc. etc. etc.) critique is infuriating and usually plan dumb.

Can you give some examples?

[TWilliam]

And here we go ... people are calling themselves smart. If PO-related overshoot doesn't kill us, sure arrogance and narcissism will. It's ludicrous we spend so much time talking about overshoot, cargoism, powerdown, depletion, etc, when we cannot tame our own attitude. Let us look no further as to why we are in such a mess.

Oh look... irony!

[MonteQuest]

[b]"A sign of the fragility of the Cult of Doomerism is the fact that peakoil.com, the Internet's home of Doomers, now routinely sees the shouting down and banning anyone who voices a contrary opinion.

To my knowledge, no one has ever been banned from po.com for posting their views, unless prohibited by the COC or in violation of the COC while posting their views.

Cornucopians tend to violate the COC far in excess of doomers when posting their views, from my experience as Senior Moderator.

[MonteQuest]

I'm not seeing the connection. The moon landing was NOT faked.

See the denial connection, now?

[Nicholai]

Sorry about the spelling error etc. I was away for the evening and didn't realize the mistake.

I'd just like to get back to some main points if that's alright. Again, I'd like to know MATHEMATICALLY why we do not have time to ramp up renewable production enough to counter the rate of global depletion in order to avoid major supply shortages.

Again, we can't predict what the rate of global oil supply depletion will be, but is it possible to assume 8% beginning in 2010, followed by an increase of 10%, 13%, 17% etc. for the years to follow? Could we assume the rate of depletion is MUCH higher than predicted and somehow avoid any major shortages as the rate of depletion increases over time?

How about fertilizer through electrolysis? Is it viable on a large scale? Small scale?

The optimist camp can't prove the rate of depletion and therefore doesn't have a timetable to work with. They don't know when we're headed for a peak and they can't tell you how quickly renewables would need to be developed in order to avoid major supply shortages. The obvious answer is to assume we WON'T be able to meet these supply shortages considering it only takes ONE slowdown in renewables production for depletion to slip ahead and lead us into a major supply shortage. As well, the battle to avoid supply shortages must go on forever. How can we assume that these alternative technologies can continue to outpace depletion far into the future?

The optimist camp assumes so much and yet has little to offer if these technologies fail to hold water. We have the technology and the resources to re-localize. The consequences are a loss in convenience. We MIGHT have the ability to tweek technology and keep our convenient lifestyles for a shot time, but in the end, the consequences will be horrendous (eventual collapse).

[Serial_Worrier]

Put the Cornucopians in concentration camps immediately.

[Ludi]

Put the Cornucopians in concentration camps immediately.

Who is going to do that? Looks expensive!

I'm not payin' for it.

[MonteQuest]

I'd like to know MATHEMATICALLY why we do not have time to ramp up renewable production enough to counter the rate of global depletion in order to avoid major supply shortages.

See my thread on it.

Energy sources such as wind, solar and biofuels are fast expanding their reach in the market. Can they grow fast enough, given their current miniscule contribution, to fill the gap of oil decline? Over the past 10 years, the installed capacity of solar energy has increased by 700%, while wind energy capacity has expanded more than thirteen-fold. That translates to 10-year annual growth rates of nearly 22% and 30%, respectively, which far exceed the single digit growth rates of many current energy economies.

During the same period, they cite other renewable energy technologies grew rapidly as well:
• wind power: 28 percent
• biodiesel: 25 percent
• solar hot water/heating: 17 percent
• off-grid solar PV: 17 percent
• geothermal heat capacity: 13 percent
• ethanol: 11 percent

However, even with these massive growth rates, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, geo thermal and biofuels contribute just 2% of our primary energy with wind/solar less than 1%. An almost inconsequential contribution, given the twilight of the oil age on the near horizon.


Peakoil and the Growth of Renewable Energy

Again, we can't predict what the rate of global oil supply depletion will be, but is it possible to assume 8% beginning in 2010, followed by an increase of 10%, 13%, 17% etc. for the years to follow?

The decline rate of existing fields is 5.2% up from 4% last year. To assume any specific decline rate is pure speculation, but I would hazard that it will be higher than 5.2% as we resort to EOR techniques for extraction far in excess of what we have done previously.

Why? Because, in the past when production declined in one area, we went to another for supply. Classic case is the USA. Would our historical decline rate be 2%, if we had not started to import oil?

Where do you get these escalating decline rates of 10%, 13%. 17% ???

How can we assume that these alternative technologies can continue to outpace depletion far into the future?

Not just outpace decline, but provide new supplies of energy for growth. Add roughly 2% to the decline rate for the actual shortfall.

[Nicholai]

Where do you get these escalating decline rates of 10%, 13%. 17% ???

I used the figures as an example to show that as depletion increases, renewables will need to make up more of the energy pie each year, including our need for growth, as you stated.

We don't know what the depletion figures are going to look like so there's really no basis for planning in this case. The optimists really need to legitimize themselves on this front.

I have another important question if that's alright. I saw a chart showing the cost of oil versus GDP. As the price went up, the GDP declined. If Gazprom is predicting $250 a barrel in 2009, what will this do to the production of renewables? Pluses, minuses?

[Ferretlover]

I'm not seeing the connection. The moon landing was NOT faked.

I think that one of the points being made is that we have posters who swear the landing Was Faked! We get all kinds here....

[MonteQuest]

I'm not seeing the connection. The moon landing was NOT faked.

I think that one of the points being made is that we have posters who swear the landing Was Faked! We get all kinds here....

No, the point being made was denial in the face of overwhelming evidence.

Hoaxes:

Moon landing

Global warming

Overshoot

[MonteQuest]

Where do you get these escalating decline rates of 10%, 13%. 17% ???

I used the figures as an example to show that as depletion increases, renewables will need to make up more of the energy pie each year, including our need for growth, as you stated.

Then use a specific % of decline. Random numbers becomes confusing to the reader.

I have another important question if that's alright. I saw a chart showing the cost of oil versus GDP. As the price went up, the GDP declined. If Gazprom is predicting $250 a barrel in 2009, what will this do to the production of renewables? Pluses, minuses?

Wind power costs have risen 48% in the last two years.

As long as you have to stand on a fossil fuel platform to buiild renewable systems, the price will rise along with fossil fuels, barring some magical technological breakthroughs.

At the rate things are unwinding, we may already have all the renewables we ever get, except on a local small individual desperate scale.

Bush's budget cut solar assistance credits.